Chalk talk on alcohol

everybody here also has some definition of alcoholism in mind everybody and usually as with addiction our definition of alcoholism will be descriptive and'll be based on your past knowledge most of them I think would be true and accurate but Dr chaitz found out from having done a study up Mass General Hospital so few alcoholics were being diagnosed in emergency discovered that one of the three major reasons was this where the patient's drinking pattern paralleled that of the examining doctor he was not an alcoholic and I'll bet you cash that those of you who are having trouble with your drinking will give a descriptive that will not include you if you're a weekend Drinker isn't it obvious that an alcoholic somebody drinks every day you drun occasionally isn't it obvious an alcoholic is somebody has drunk all the time if you drink daily isn't it true that an alcoholic somebody drinks in the morning and you don't etc etc an alcoholic is someone whose drinking causes serious life problem it's that simple it is just that simple and again I think that the validity of any statement can be seen in the stupidity of its opposite let me ask you this seemingly crazy question question many of you know or have you ever heard of a person man woman or child who has ever wrecked an automobile total it and nearly killed himself as a result of eating string beans have you ever heard of that we've all known people who nearly killed themselves because they were drunk now you can wreck a car for many reasons but if alcohol is the reason alcohol is a problem face it I can't prove this it's a self-evident truth to prove you step behind and show something up a clearer light I can't prove this what makes is one I can't prove that you buy it or you don't let me again describe there's a young fellow in jessup's cut he is serving 20 to life he has no left arm St to go to a meeting because his cellmate did that's all want something to do he had no more notion of alcohol alcoholism man the moon but while there he heard what makes trouble is trouble and if your alcohol causes trouble it's a problem with you this drunk three times in his life the first time he lost his arm the second time he lost his family and the third time he committed a crime that lost him his freedom he concluded correctly he's an alcoholic but how many of you have ever looked at someone in the family someone you work for someone who works for you and said this totally insane thing well yeah he drinks but he's not that bad yet now he's not what bad yet he's not what bad yet he waited he dead and perhaps conclude he had a little trouble with his drinking this is the insanity of behind misinformation in this field there is no field on Earth in which the half truth results in more tragedy than this one if you honest to Heavens believe that alcoholism is a disease then it's diagnosable and treatable some symptoms of alcoholism and if you know a few of these you can write the rest of the story on any alcoholic that you know it's just a question of details hold on to your chairs all alcoholics drink too much you say well good Heavens I know that this characterizes all alcoholics and excessive drinking pattern now let me ask you this how much is too much see it doesn't have to do with any constant amount relative too much is however much is too much for you that's too much and too much is what makes problems let me show you we call alcoholism a disease of Mind here's the way he functions and please bear this in mind all the way through he can get the troops out of Vietnam in three weeks asking why doesn't the president call me he can't get out of bed but he's going to get troops out of Vietnam he can solve world problems can't handle his own I knew a skyus in Detroit used to treat alcoholics and he was good but in between patience he' reach into the drawer and boom it's the only way he can get through to day the problems blackout just as all people addicts and non- addicts will be affected by Ether all people are going to be affected by alcohol now alcoholics and non-alcoholics can experience blackouts but tell a non-alcoholic fairly normal person who can't remember last night but who has a dent in his right front fender that have hit somebody he'll never drink and drive again the alcoholic drinks and drives all the time a blackout by the way by the way is present inability to remember something done recently Under the Influence he didn't remember graduating from grammar school 900 years ago can't remember last night I know a woman over in Baltimore married to a man who was up for promotion to General at 3: a.m. during the Christmas holiday her daughter home from college found her passed out in a bedroom uh bathroom floor it embarrassed her for 30 seconds this lady blacks out every time she drinks beginning at 4 p.m. every afternoon of her life she has no recollection the tall of every evening that she drinks and it's daily this no more faces her and a man the moon she's sick this is way down here guling and sneaking drinks if a man were to see his wife sneak into the bathroom lift the lid off the toilet tank pull out a bottle of milk and drink three shots he'd have her committed in about five minutes now he drinks alcohol this way that's why he drinks alcohol and I never Dawns on him as it's different from normal people loss of control in whatever degree why he was drunk at his daughter's graduation of course he was he said he was only going to drink three he drank 23 is than you and so when you ask him why he comes up with aliis he has an alibi system you know what an alibi is it's an unreasonable reason for doing something would' you get drunk last Monday night where he says it rained you say how about Tuesday he says it didn't for it's the people I work with it's my wife's big mouth it's the dogs birthday my team won or my team lost whatever now we left the aliis now listen to the professional man well he's drunk because he has an inferiority complex he's drunk because he's afraid of authority he's drunk because he was born in the slums he's drunk um because his mommy abandoned him when he was three he's no such a thing drunk for those reasons that's the professional man's Albi system I don't mean to ridicule it don't mistake me we'll try to clear this up a little bit later but his reasons for the alcoholics drinking are somewhat valid because they did play a part in the alcoholics Contracting the disease that's not why he's drunk today anyway the eye opener the need of a drink after a period of deprivation please notice it's not called the morning drink because many an alcoholic has read somewhere if you drink in the morning you're in so you know what he does he shakes the pieces till noon because though a disease depends on a rist watch we call the eye opener the need of a drink after a period of being deprived of it sleep so normally the eye openers in the morning drinking alone to hide the frequency and the amount he doesn't want you to know he drinks as much as he does as often as he does that's why he shows up with about 12 Miniatures in his pocket old weak bladder Willie he's the guy in the office who goes to the to the bathroom about 82 times between arrival and lunch and he comes back a little more woozy after each trip did you ever catch anybody at this is why he gulps and sneaks he doesn't want you to see him drink did you ever walk into a kitchen at a party you know I hear some clown there with a bottle in his hi there hello he's embarrassed he's caught at are normal people embarrassed at taking a drink of whiskey no such thing he is because he doesn't drink normally he doesn't drink that's not normal drinking change the pattern I've got to do something about my drinking so he switches from bourbon to Scotch to vodka to beer let me show you what I meant in the beginning by lack of knowledge of this thing there's one difference between a beer alcoholic and a whiskey alcoholic there's the same amount of alcohol in 12 ounces of beer as you'll find in an ounce of whiskey simply means you got to drink more and go to the bathroom more often and it's not worth it especially on these cold winter nights they tell one about a man that bought a beer went in the men's room and just flushed it down to John somebody said you lost your mind he said no he's just sick and tired of being the middle man antisocial behavior let's put it this briefly and this simply have you ever said of someone you know he's a wonderful fellow when so best worker when he's here that's it now what do we mean by antisocial many parties are enhanced by inviting some specific person who gets half slopped up and entertains everybody not obnoxious at all he's simply funny there's a difference between standing on a piano and leading the songs and busting into a neighbor's house on a Saturday afternoon after 19 rounds of gulf and hopping up on his piano with your golf shoes on and then puking on his rug this is gross and this is frowned this is antisocial and has repercussions loss of friends jobs and families I am not so much of a fool as to think that these things can't happen as a result of many other things but if they result from one's drinking then that's alcoholism and please I beg you if you remember nothing else alcoholism is a family diseas and those who live with it get as sick or sicker than the alcoholic and they need treatment let me show you what I mean and I don't say this for shock value a couple hours kids in our high schools are going to be down the cafeteria eating lunch and at too many tables where they're talking about some game they saw the night before or some lesson they just had in class there's going to be one kid down at the end with his face down in the soup he's saying nothing guess what happened in his house last night at 2:30 in the morning he was shaking to Pieces listening to his dad calling his mother a godamn in the midst of a drunken rage now this happens in your block what happens in the heart of a little 8-year-old girl who comes home from school with a classmate and there's the mother Stark naked passed out in the middle of the dining room floor drunk they don't get over these things they can't ventilate them with anyone most alcoholics Rec in AA are children of Alcoholics and I don't think because they inherit it I think they inherit attitudes caused by their experience with an alcoholic I have met women who have said to me I've heard it so often father I'm beginning to believe it myself I don't know what I am first of all they they they're guilt ridden because they blame themselves for the husband's drinking this is fantastic alcohol is indeed a result of a combination of causitive factors it's not biochemical purely it's not psychological or psychiatric purely it's not emotional purely It's a combination of all these things and they differ with the individual alcoholism in turn is productive it's a symptom but it's not just a symptom that's the half truth because with this goofy word symptom in mind we have focused on the cuses not the problem two men one a New York stock broker and the other a physician surgeon from akan Ohio said let's treat the alcoholism and they did they found out what it was causing cleared up when it cleared up and now they were able with proper therapy to face life without the chemical how many of you have discussed the drug problem with a drink in your hand the most overused drug on Earth is alcohol it's alcohol anyway doctors and hospitals you got therosis drink again and you'll die so he stays sober out of fear but when he drinks again after a protracted prolonged period of sobriety he winds up on a bender or a binge and he wonders what happened remember what I said in the beginning addiction is characterized by compulsive use and once contracted it progresses till death holic after 10 years of sobriety drinks again he does not begin at the beginning and he does not pick up where he left off he picks up where he would have been if he had been drinking all that while why is this nobody knows it's simply an infallible fact so the alcoholic can't stay so five years and drink at the punch bowls Brink what the wise man think what they say in Japan first the man takes a drink then the drink takes a drink then the drink takes the man he's sober eight years and he says this to himself I'm a man I can handle a beer but all addiction goes from the lesser amount to theer am from the Lesser drug to the greater drug he does handle a beer and he may for a week but sooner or later he's going to handle two then five and he handles five shots a few days later a fifth and a half handles him Tremors the inner shakes and screaming for a drink is indicative of a positive cellular craving for the drug without which he cannot operate normally this is an infallible sign of addiction and ladies and gentlemen that is why alcoholics drink they don't drink because it rained or didn't nor do they drink because of an inferiority complex darn it that caused the drinking what they drink today as a result and symptom of their illness in other words and briefly and those of you who are writing can write it down alcoholics drink because they are alcoholics the ill nature of alcoholism to use compulsively alcohol in other words alcoholics drink because they can't not drink it's perfectly true that an alcoholic's freedom is missing and gone between drinks 10 and 11 I maintain that he's not free before the first drink the farther away the alcoholic is from his last drink the closer he is to his next one it is simply a question of time and when it happens we get down to here try to explain it the explanation is in the nature of his addictive nature protect the supply if you know anybody hides bottles you know an alcoholic people don't hide milk they don't hide orange remember Days of Wine and Roses this kid hid one from himself he hid it and then blacked out unreasonable resentments here's a wife been living for 15 years for this and she she's totally bewildered now I say yes I'm wrong I say no I'm wrong see he's running out of Alibi and he needs a reason to drink he's drinking compulsively tremendously now he doesn't know why and he's getting flaky so he comes home and he provokes her to anger and when she yells he drinks he resents unreasonably nameless fears and anxieties the louder the mouth the scared of the man alcoholism teaches one thing to its victims how to be scared till we come to the end of the line the collapse of the Alibi system the tragedy for 35 out of 36 death occurs it does you know what that is means the aliis disappear I didn't get drunk last night because the Colts won or lost they didn't play I didn't get drunk because of her Big Mouth She's Gone it's not the people I work with I don't work and it's not the dog's birthday he's dead I drank because I couldn't help it I had to drink he has looked into the mirror of self and seeing what is there he reaches his Moment of Truth the insanity of our reasoning is it true to say you can't help an alcoholic until he wants it yes perfectly true he will not respond to treatment until he wants to all I'm saying is get him into treatment try to make him want to that's all you know what I'm saying in effect I'll wait till he asks for help God in heaven I'm looking at a man with a sick mind asking him to make a major decision about his life I am presuming the very health of mind that he needs and doesn't have you can lead a horse to water and not make him drink good gracious I know that but you can lead him there and make him thirsty get him into treatment and see if he'll respond okay but what might work might work let me ask you this how many of you have ever walked down the street on a beautiful spring day about a half hour before lunch I think I'll go that denos off and have a few teeth out we don't function that way how can we expect an alcoholic to say I think I'll do something about my drinking problem till he says I got one and if he doesn't know he's got one it's up to us to make him see it I how about seeking treatment buddy or seeking a new job you know like that if he surrenders to his addiction he winds up incarcerated insane or dead or he can surrender to help there are clinics there is Psychiatry there is psychology and I beg you don't undersell The Virtue and the value and the place of a return to one's religious Faith as a component of complete recovery but Above All Else what works best for most is AA face it ladies and gent a thing on God's Good Earth that works or succeeds like success nothing it is 12 principles by which to live based on the first three I can't handle it God can I believe I'll let it it has worked to the tune of one half million people the programs that you will set up in Heaven's name use the resources you have available the professionals who know in God's name they are talking about tons of money are being dumped into drug abuse and I think we know nothing about drugs nothing and we spin wheels and get a lot of screw balls heading up these things forgive me I don't mean to be stepping on individual toes I'm just calling facts use people who know something about alcoholism to help in this and I might leave with these few thoughts number one to me an educated man is one who has learned after a number of years to say I don't know I don't have all the answers we need many people to do it there are guidelines for industry that have been found to be workable in Heaven's name find them out secondly you have been more than kind I appreciate more than you know you're having me here to talk I hope for those of you who can still drink that I didn't spoil your drinking for you and you somebody who doesn't have a smile on his face give him one of yours thanks very kindly you